A total of eight South African banks took part in the cryptocurrency-based tests, utilizing blockchain technology developed by Ethereum incubator ConsenSys Labs. Apart from the central bank itself, Absa, Capitec, Discovery, Investec, FirstRand, Nedbank, and Standard Bank took part in the pilot.

Currently, the SARB utilizes an indigenous technology, the South African Multiple Option Settlement System (SAMOS), to perform real-time gross settlements between local banks. For the project, J.P. Morgan-backed Quorum, a permissioned blockchain product of ConsenSys Labs, was chosen to simulate the SAMOS functions in a decentralized ledger system.
“Project Khokha”

All participating banks had an individual node on Project Khokha. Each was configured with 16GB RAM and four virtual computing units. The specifications were made with Linux Open-Source operating system Ubuntu in mind, as it requires the bare minimum setup to operate.

A variety of servers and cloud-storage services were utilized for Project Khokha, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and physical servers.